Coronation Street star Roache ‘used celebrity to abuse girls’

The actor’s popularity was said to have silenced his “star-struck” victims for decades until the Jimmy Savile and Stuart Hall scandals emerged.

Roache, 81, denies five historic counts of indecent assault and two historic counts of rape involving the complainants when they were aged between 11 or 12 and 16.

The offences are said to have occurred between 1965 and 1971, at a time when he had already achieved fame for playing Ken Barlow in the ITV soap.

The defendant allegedly used his stardom to “flatter” the girls, Preston Crown Court was told.

A 14-year-old was sexually assaulted in the men’s toilets of Granada Studios in Manchester after taking part in a talent show there, jurors heard.

Another victim was said to be a young autograph-hunter who Roache abused in his silver Rolls-Royce before he stopped the car and “gave her half a crown (12.5p) and told her to get the bus home”.

Anne Whyte QC, opening the case for the prosecution, told the jury of eight women and four men they were “bound to know” the defendant is a household name but said William Roache was on trial – not Ken Barlow.

“You may well conclude by the end of this trial that William Roache’s fame and popularity provided not only the opportunity for his offending but that it is one of the predominant reasons for his victims’ decades of silence,” she said.

The prosecutor said that the first complainant in the case contacted the police last March.

She said: “In the context of discussing other sex scandals involving the late Cyril Smith and Jimmy Savile, her son had expressed disbelief about how long it had taken for victims of sexual offences to come forward. His mother tried to explain, and in this case she knows. She eventually told her son about what had happened many years before with the defendant.”

Her son told her to contact the police, which she eventually did, said Miss Whyte.

Roache was arrested on May 1 and, after being interviewed, he was charged with two offences of rape.

The publicity that followed led to the other complainants coming forward.

Apart from two of the alleged victims being sisters, there was nothing to link any of the complainants, the court heard.

The jury was told that the first alleged victim of Roache was aged 14 when he is said to have indecently assaulted her at Granada Studios in 1965.

Afterwards, Roache sent her a letter and signed photograph of himself, which will be shown to the jury.

But this was not a “benign personal touch” by a “well-known young male actor”, the court heard.

Instead it was a deliberate act, Miss Whyte said, “designed to impress a young schoolgirl and to secure her unquestioning loyalty as a fan for a sexual purpose. A sort of grooming, as we would nowadays call it”.

When he was interviewed by police, Roache denied that he was a rapist and said he was “a peaceful and gentle person”.

The star went on to tell detectives that women had expressed a sexual interest in him over the years and he had taken the opportunity to sleep with many women.

But, he added, those encounters had all been consensual and he did not have a sexual interest in underage girls.

Concluding her opening, Miss Whyte told the members of the jury: “If at any stage of the trial, as we anticipate, it is suggested to you that these complainants are lying and on some sort of Jimmy Savile bandwagon, we would ask you to ask yourselves why? Why would they expose themselves to this?

“Being questioned and cross-examined after so many years of privacy and why, if they are lying, is there compelling evidence that although they did not report it to the police, they did tell other people about it, often much nearer the time?”

Miss Whyte went on: “It is the Crown’s case that the defendant took full advantage of his stardom and took advantage of these complainants at a time in his life when he thought he could.”